There is no choice but he will need to do it. We are going to play half or more the games in the NL, there will be lots of double switch and pinch hitting, and at some points you will need to use your pen more than these 2 pass series. Devensiki is still a solid guy that AJ must trust and he is our only option in the pen against lefties. Harris isn’t great but you have no other better choice next to him. Leaving Peacock and McHugh as your long guys but they can both come in to pitch one inning also and plus Giles as the closer. We will need these 5 guys to step up big time in the WS.
Yeah, itll be interesting how and who he deploys first. The dodgers having no familiarity with our guys will help but its gonna be goosebumps raising stuff. Also, him not being all that great at game managing anyway, I just hope he doesnt fall flat on his face or get too cute during the NL games.
How is Hinch not “all that great” at game managing? His team did win 101 games and make the World Series.
No reason he should or will trust his pen any more than he is absolutely forced to. Devo has been shaky for a long time now, Harris has been dog s**t in his postseason appearances. Musgrove hasn't really been given much of a look, so he may be the best option, but the middle relievers are gun to head usage only at this point.
Bullpen needs to give reason to be trusted. We can barely depend on Peacock right now for Goodness sake.
Although he didn’t say he was a bad manager, it is odd to me how folks still question his managerial ability. He has gotten farther this year than all of the so called great in game managers.
AJ’s approach of ‘what have you done to me yesterday ‘ is a bad approach. Devo is the most reliable reliever we got the whole season, not even Giles. And Musgrove, he lost his starting job for a reason, because he only knows to pitch strike. AJ should never use him in any important game situation in this series again, maybe he will learn and grow to be better like Devo and Peacock next year, but now it’s not the time.
One side benefit of the bullpen not being trusted is that Hinch is sticking longer with guys he may otherwise pull. Girardi was just looking for openings to take his starters out so he could use his vaunted bullpen. It’s just 4-7 more games. He’ll do what it takes to navigate through any one game.
no bullpen. ban them all. except giles,he'll be ready. if you mean pen, hinch trusts it. have you not seen his beautiful handwriting.
And that's true of all managers in MLB. No matter how successful a manager has been, there are always subsets of fans who want to run him out of town because they only remember the decisions that backfired or only remember the most recent decision, which they feel might have directly led to a loss. Most modern thinking about MLB managers says that they can really only add or subtract a few wins over the course of a season, so honestly, unless a guy is divisive in the clubhouse or isn't giving opportunities to certain players (a common criticism of old-school baseball managers who don't often trust young players), it's probably not worth getting worked up about.
I'm gonna assume you haven't watched a lot of this team if you think Devo has been a better reliever than Musgrove over the last 2 months. Devo has been walking people far too often, and always has traffic. Musgrove has been wiping people out.
So top 6, Astro’s down 1-0 against Kershaw, base loaded and 2 outs, DK is up and his pitch count is only 60 pictches through 5. You want AJ to let him bat?
This is all wrong. Recency matters when you're talking about a single series or a single game with enormous consequences to losing. Harris has been different since coming off the DL...in that case, I don't care about his 1st half of the season. Similarly, while Devo has been overall reliable like yo usaid, he hasn't been the same guy that he was in the 1st 2 months. So Hinch shouldn't treat him as if he's the average of his entire season.
Go watch that game against the Yankees and how Devo walked Bird and got yanked by AJ, and how Musgrove got the next 2 outs. Devo pitched 4 great changups in a row and Bird just swang in one. While Musgrove got 2 meatballs in the zone and the Yankees just missed those. There is zero surprise how the Yankees get to him in the next inning to blow the things wide opened.
Did McCullers throw meatballs into the zone and got hit hard last night? How difficult for you to understand how our pitchers got their most outs against the Yankees?
I asked a simple question. You started a thread saying Hinch should trust his bullpen more. Should he have trusted his bullpen guys - Devenski and Giles - to close out the 8th and 9th innings OR should he have stuck with the guy who was getting the job done?
Trust needs to be earned. Its WS folks. Not a time to give away games by leaving a struggling reliever in there if he is sh!tting on himself. But I agree we will probably need quality relief work to win this series. Got to have at least 3 relievers we can trust IMO. Not sure we had a single one in the ALCS (not counting starters in relief roles).
